DOCSLIB.ORG

War and Peace in Europe from Napoleon to the Kaiser: the Defeat of Napoleon, 1806-1815 Transcript

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
War and Peace in Europe from Napoleon to the Kaiser: the Defeat of Napoleon, 1806-1815 Transcript War and Peace in Europe from Napoleon to the Kaiser: The defeat of Napoleon, 1806-1815 Transcript Date: Thursday, 8 October 2009 - 12:00AM Location: Museum of London WAR AND PEACE IN EUROPE FROM NAPOLEON TO THE KAISER THE DEFEAT OF NAPOLEON, 1806-1815 Professor Richard J Evans Gresham Professor of Rhetoric In the first decade of the 19th century, the armies of the French First Consul and, from December Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, swept across Europe, defeating every coalition of rival powers put together to try and contain them. In 1805 he destroyed an Austrian army at Ulm, in southern Germany, forcing its general to surrender and capturing 30,000 prisoners; six weeks later, he achieved his greatest victory of all, at the Battle of Austerlitz, fought on 2 December 1805 against an allied army of Austrians and Russians, in Moravia. Napoleon proved his tactical skill and daring in this encounter. The two sides were evenly matched, with Napoleon commanding 75,000 troops and the Allies 73,000. Napoleon began by tempting the Allied forces to weaken their centre by attacking his right flank, which he had deliberately left under-strength. His battle plan depended on rushing up reinforcements of 7,000 fresh troops from Vienna under Marshal Davout to strengthen his right while he moved his main force onto the Pratzen Heights, the central ground of the battle. Davout's men arrived after a forced march, and held the right flank, while Napoleon smashed through the enemy centre, then mopped up the enemy forces to the south, before driving the combined allied troops from the battlefield. 15,000 soldiers were left dead or wounded on the allied side, and 12,000 taken prisoner; the French lost 8,000 and nearly 600 taken prisoner. The Austrians recognized the inevitable and signed the Peace of Pressburg on 26 December, giving up many of their territories in northern Italy and southern Germany to Napoleon and his clients. The Holy Roman Empire founded by Charlemagne in 800 and ruled by the Habsburgs with only one short break since the Middle Ages was abolished. There remained the Prussians to deal with. Appalled by Napoleon's creation of another client state in the shape of the Confederation of the Rhine, and by news of his intention to return Hanover from Prussian to British control in an attempt to buy peace with the United Kingdom, the Prussians declared war in October 1806. Their leading general, Gebhard von Blücher, declared that 'the French will find their grave on this side of the Rhine, and those who make it back home will take with them news of disaster'. The Prussians were over-confident. They managed to mobilize nearly 110,000 men, but Napoleon advanced into Saxony with more than 140,000, whom he had kept in a state of readiness for just such an eventuality. On 14 October 1806 Napoleon and Marshal Davout defeated the Prussians at the twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt. At the latter encounter, Davout had crushed a Prussian force more than twice the strength of his own. The French owed their success above all to Napoleon's quick reactions, his ability to adapt to a rapidly changing situation, the professionalism of his troops and the over-confidence of the Prussians. These catastrophic defeats did not stop the Prussians from fighting on, however, and Napoleon inflicted another massive defeat on them at Eylau on 8 February 1807; on 14 June he beat the Russians at Friedland, forcing them to sign the Peace of Tilsit. Finally, when the Austrians declared war on Napoleon again in 1809, they managed to inflict a defeat on him at the crossing of the Danube at Aspern- Essling before Napoleon decisively defeated them a month later at the Battle of Wagram on 6 July 1809, completing one of the most remarkable series of military victories in modern history. Napoleon used these victories to redraw the map of Europe, annexing large swathes of it to France, which by 1810 stretched from the Hanseatic cities in the north (renamed the Département des Bouches de l?Elbe) through the Low Countries to north-west Italy in the south. At its height the French Empire covered three- quarters of a million square kilometers and numbered 44 million people as its citizens and inhabitants. He surrounded the Grand Empire with a ring of satellite states, often ruled by his relatives, including the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, the Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of Westphalia. Everywhere that Napoleon ruled, he replaced encrusted custom and privilege with the rationality and uniformity, bringing the legacy of the French Revolution into states previously mired in the complexities and contradictions of the ancien régime.. While his armies rampaged across Europe, his bureaucrats moved in silently behind, reorganizing, systematizing, standardizing. In the areas it annexed and the borderlands where it established its client states, notably western Germany, northern Italy and the Low Countries, as well as, notably, France itself, a new generation of professional administrators emerged to run things while Napoleon was away waging his never-ending military campaigns. Local and regional jurisdictions, such as those exercised by hundreds of Imperial knights in the Holy Roman Empire, and by church and seigneurial courts, were replaced by centralized uniformity administered by a judicial bureaucracy. In all these areas, the Napoleonic Law Code replaced existing, often tradition-bound laws and ordinances, introducing a key element of equality before the law, even if in some respects this central principle of the French Revolution had been modified by Napoleon's more conservative outlook on issues such as the rights and duties of women. Property rights were guaranteed wherever the Code applied, as they had not been in many areas before. The Code proclaimed many of the key ideas of the French Revolution, including the freedom of the individual, and, as Napoleon himself proclaimed in his testament, equality of opportunity, 'career open to talent', and 'the rule of reason'. Weights and measures were standardized, internal customs tolls abolished, guilds and other restrictions on the free movement of labour swept away, serfs freed (including in Poland). The state took over the appointment of clergy, and introduced freedom of worship and a measure of equality of rights for non- Christians, notably the Jews. The power of the Church had been drastically reduced, with vast swathes of land being secularized and ecclesiastical states swept off the map. The registration of births, marriages and deaths was assigned to secular authorities. Monasteries were dissolved, and the power of the Church was further reduced in many areas by the introduction of freedom of religion, civil marriage and divorce, secular education, and the removal of some of the most crass discriminatory measures applied to non-Christian communities such as the Jews. How did France under Napoleon manage to establish this extraordinary degree of hegemony over Europe? Clearly, although his admirers have always refused to admit it, Napoleon's own undoubted military genius was not the sole cause. At the most general level, it is important to remember that France was the most prosperous, the most advanced and the most populous country in Europe, numbering some 28 million people at the beginning of the 1790s. Around 1810, Britain's population was 12 million, Austria's 19 million, Prussia's 5 million, Bavaria's 3 million, Saxony's 5 million. Russia's population totalled 31 million, but the standard of living and levels of production were far below those of France. Germany was divided into a large number of independent states, over which the Holy Roman Empire had only minimal control. As the Napoleonic Wars showed, the leading states in Central Europe, Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, generally found it difficult to combine against the French, although going it alone, as both the Austrians and the Prussians discovered, was a recipe for disaster. Between the mid-1790s and the mid-1810s, the Austrians, Prussians and Russians found it more or less impossible to join forces against the French, so that almost to the very end, the various coalitions of powers ranged against them included one or two of the other leading powers in Europe, but not all three. This nullified the potential advantage of their combined superiority of numbers. The French, both under the Revolution and under Napoleon, were able to draft more men into the army not just because they had more men than most other states to draft, but also because they had already developed under the ancien régime a centralized system of administration that enabled them to do so quickly and efficiently and then train and mobilize them for battle speedily and effectively. On almost every occasion, Napoleon was able to put more troops onto the battlefield than his opponents could manage; when he could not, defeat as often or not was the result. While the armies of Prussia, Austria and Russia were run by generals who owed their position to their aristocratic background, their length of service, and their influence at court, the French armies were commanded by younger men, above all by Napoleon and his marshals, who had earned their promotion through sheer ability, rewarded by the 'career open to the talents' introduced by the Revolution. Losing a battle under the Revolution was no joke for French generals, 84 of whom were guillotined during the Reign of Terror in 1793-4. They were trained in a harsh school, which responded to the invasion of France by counter-revolutionary forces led by the Austrians in 1792-93 with aggressive tactics that carried the battle to the enemy. Napoleon took this attitude onto a new level, repeatedly confounding his opponents with his swiftness and his willingness to attack.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Tolstoy's War and Peace
    Tolstoy’s War and Peace Soap opera, epic masterpiece, neither, or both? Course # 21FTOY Format: Seminar Moderators: Nancy Coiner Kendra Dahlquist Date and Time: Monday, 9:30-11:30 AM 10 weeks, starting 9/27/2021 Format: Online Maximum number of participants: 18 Auditors accepted: Yes, up to 2 Purpose : We will read War and Peace together, with plenty of background presentations and discussion to make it come alive as a work of art and life. Description: According to Isaac Babel, “If life could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy.” War and Peace is a huge, sweeping narrative, part history and part fiction, which describes Napoleon's attempt to conquer Russia. Centered on the lives of four aristocratic families between 1805 and 1812, it includes complex characters based on Tolstoy’s parents and grandparents, who spoke French and wore French fashions but passionately resisted Napoleon’s attack. Yes, it’s long, with a cast of hundreds. But almost all readers find that, after the opening chapters, the story and characters carry them along irresistibly. We witness the burning of Moscow, young people making life- altering mistakes, the glory and horror of war. Yet (as Woolf notes) "there is always at the centre of all the brilliant and flashing petals . this scorpion, ‘Why live?’" It’s a brilliant, unsettling mix. Background presentations and lively discussions will help us enter this exhilarating work of historical and philosophical fiction. Role of participants: Participants will read approximately 150 pages of War and Peace a session. They will have the choice of giving a presentation (on Tolstoy, Russian Orthodoxy, Napoleon's career, the battle of Austerlitz, etc.) or leading a discussion.
    [Show full text]
  • Animals Liberation Philosophy and Policy Journal Volume 5, Issue 2
    AAnniimmaallss LLiibbeerraattiioonn PPhhiilloossoopphhyy aanndd PPoolliiccyy JJoouurrnnaall VVoolluummee 55,, IIssssuuee 22 -- 22000077 Animal Liberation Philosophy and Policy Journal Volume 5, Issue 2 2007 Edited By: Steven Best, Chief Editor ____________________________________________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS Lev Tolstoy and the Freedom to Choose One’s Own Path Andrea Rossing McDowell Pg. 2-28 Jewish Ethics and Nonhuman Animals Lisa Kemmerer Pg. 29-47 Deliberative Democracy, Direct Action, and Animal Advocacy Stephen D’Arcy Pg. 48-63 Should Anti-Vivisectionists Boycott Animal-Tested Medicines? Katherine Perlo Pg. 64-78 A Note on Pedagogy: Humane Education Making a Difference Piers Bierne and Meena Alagappan Pg. 79-94 BOOK REVIEWS _________________ Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, by Eric Schlosser (2005) Reviewed by Lisa Kemmerer Pg. 95-101 Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust, by Charles Patterson (2002) Reviewed by Steven Best Pg. 102-118 The Longest Struggle: Animal Advocacy from Pythagoras to PETA, by Norm Phelps (2007) Reviewed by Steven Best Pg. 119-130 Journal for Critical Animal Studies, Volume V, Issue 2, 2007 Lev Tolstoy and the Freedom to Choose One’s Own Path Andrea Rossing McDowell, PhD It is difficult to be sat on all day, every day, by some other creature, without forming an opinion about them. On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to sit all day every day, on top of another creature and not have the slightest thought about them whatsoever. -- Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (1988) Committed to the idea that the lives of humans and animals are inextricably linked, Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828–1910) promoted—through literature, essays, and letters—the animal world as another venue in which to practice concern and kindness, consequently leading to more peaceful, consonant human relations.
    [Show full text]
  • Unpalatable Pleasures: Tolstoy, Food, and Sex
    University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Scholarship Languages, Literatures, and Cultures 1993 Unpalatable Pleasures: Tolstoy, Food, and Sex Ronald D. LeBlanc University of New Hampshire - Main Campus, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/lang_facpub Recommended Citation Rancour-Laferriere, Daniel. Tolstoy’s Pierre Bezukhov: A Psychoanalytic Study. London: Bristol Classical Press, 1993. Critiques: Brett Cooke, Ronald LeBlanc, Duffield White, James Rice. Reply: Daniel Rancour- Laferriere. Volume VII, 1994, pp. 70-93. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Scholarship by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NEW ~·'T'::'1r"'T,n.1na rp.llHlrIP~ a strict diet. There needs to'be a book about food. L.N. Tolstoy times it seems to me as if the Russian is a sort of lost soul. You want to do and yet you can do nothing. You keep thinking that you start a new life as of tomorrow, that you will start a new diet as of tomorrow, but of the sort happens: by the evening of that 'very same you have gorged yourself so much that you can only blink your eyes and you cannot even move your tongue. N.V. Gogol Russian literature is mentioned, one is likely to think almost instantly of that robust prose writer whose culinary, gastronomic and alimentary obsessions--in his verbal art as well as his own personal life-­ often reached truly gargantuan proportions.
    [Show full text]
  • Sample Pages
    About This Volume Brett Cooke We continue to be surprised by how the extremely rewarding world WKDW/HR7ROVWR\FUHDWHGLVDG\QDPLFVWLOOJURZLQJRQH:KHQWKH Russian writer sat down in 1863 to begin what became War and PeaceKHXWLOL]HGSRUWUDLWVRIfamily members, as well as images RIKLPVHOILQZKDWDW¿UVWFRQVWLWXWHGDOLJKWO\¿FWLRQDOL]HGfamily chronicle; he evidently used the exercise to consider how he and the SUHVHQWVWDWHRIKLVFRXQWU\FDPHWREH7KLVLQYROYHGDUHWKLQNLQJRI KRZKLVSDUHQWV¶JHQHUDWLRQZLWKVWRRGWKH)UHQFKLQYDVLRQRI slightly more than a half century prior, both militarily and culturally. Of course, one thinks about many things in the course of six highly FUHDWLYH \HDUV DQG KLV WH[W UHÀHFWV PDQ\ RI WKHVH LQWHUHVWV +LV words are over determined in that a single scene or even image typically serves several themes as he simultaneously pondered the Napoleonic Era, the present day in Russia, his family, and himself, DVZHOODVPXFKHOVH6HOIGHYHORSPHQWEHLQJWKH¿UVWRUGHUIRUDQ\ VHULRXVDUWLVWZHVHHDQWLFLSDWLRQVRIWKHSURWHDQFKDOOHQJHV7ROVWR\ posed to the contemporary world decades after War and Peace in terms of religion, political systems, and, especially, moral behavior. In other words, he grew in stature. As the initial reception of the QRYHO VKRZV 7ROVWR\ UHVSRQGHG WR WKH FRQVWHUQDWLRQ RI LWV ¿UVW readers by increasing the dynamism of its form and considerably DXJPHQWLQJLWVLQWHOOHFWXDODPELWLRQV,QKLVKDQGV¿FWLRQEHFDPH emboldened to question the structure of our universe and expand our sense of our own nature. We are all much the richer spiritually for his achievement. One of the happy accidents of literary history is that War and Peace and Fyodor 'RVWRHYVN\¶VCrime and PunishmentZHUH¿UVW published in the same literary periodical, The Russian Messenger. )XUWKHUPRUHDV-DQHW7XFNHUH[SODLQVERWKQRYHOVH[SUHVVFRQFHUQ whether Russia should continue to conform its culture to West (XURSHDQ PRGHOV VLPXOWDQHRXVO\ VHL]LQJ RQ WKH VDPH ¿JXUH vii Napoleon Bonaparte, in one case leading a literal invasion of the country, in the other inspiring a premeditated murder.
    [Show full text]
  • Tolstoy's Oak Tree Metaphor
    BJPsych Advances (2015), vol. 21, 185–187 doi: 10.1192/apt.bp.114.013490 Tolstoy’s oak tree metaphor: MINDREADING depression, recovery and psychiatric ‘spiritual ecology’ Jeremy Holmes times for Leo. They had 13 children. However, Jeremy Holmes is a retired SUMMARY with Tolstoy’s increasing fame, accumulated consultant medical psychotherapist and general psychiatrist. He is Tolstoy’s life and work illustrate resilience, disciples and hangers-on, and eccentric views the transcendence of trauma and the enduring currently Visiting Professor to (e.g. on marital celibacy – a precept he signally the Department of Psychology, impact of childhood loss. I have chosen the failed to practise!) the marriage deteriorated, University of Exeter, UK. famous oak tree passage from War and Peace to often into open warfare, and was beset by Correspondence Jeremy Holmes, illustrate recovery from the self-preoccupation of School of Psychology, University of depression and the theme of ‘eco-spirituality’ – Sophia’s suicide threats (Fig 2). At the age of 82, Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QG, UK. Email: the idea that post-depressive connectedness and possibly in the early stages of a confusional state, [email protected] love apply not just to significant others but also to Tolstoy precipitously left home, accompanied by nature and the environment. his daughter Alexandra. A day later he died of pneumonia at Astapovo railway station en route DECLARATION OF INTEREST to the Caucasus. None. War and Peace I seem to re-read War and Peace roughly every Leo Tolstoy’s novels War and Peace (1869) 20 years – my fourth cycle is fast approaching.
    [Show full text]
  • Tolstoy and Cosmopolitanism
    CHAPTER 8 Tolstoy and Cosmopolitanism Christian Bartolf Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) is known as the famous Russian writer, author of the novels Anna Karenina, War and Peace, The Kreutzer Sonata, and Resurrection, author of short prose like “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, “How Much Land Does a Man Need”, and “Strider” (Kholstomer). His literary work, including his diaries, letters and plays, has become an integral part of world literature. Meanwhile, more and more readers have come to understand that Leo Tolstoy was a unique social thinker of universal importance, a nineteenth- and twentieth-century giant whose impact on world history remains to be reassessed. His critics, descendants, and followers became almost innu- merable, among them Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in South Africa, later called “Mahatma Gandhi”, and his German-Jewish architect friend Hermann Kallenbach, who visited the publishers and translators of Tolstoy in England and Scotland (Aylmer Maude, Charles William Daniel, Isabella Fyvie Mayo) during the Satyagraha struggle of emancipation in South Africa. The friendship of Gandhi, Kallenbach, and Tolstoy resulted in an English-language correspondence which we find in the Collected Works C. Bartolf (*) Gandhi Information Center - Research and Education for Nonviolence (Society for Peace Education), Berlin, Germany © The Author(s) 2018 121 A.K. Giri (ed.), Beyond Cosmopolitanism, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-5376-4_8 122 C. BARTOLF of both, Gandhi and Tolstoy, and in the Tolstoy Farm as the name of the second settlement project of Gandhi
    [Show full text]
  • Tolstoy and Clio: an Exploration in Historiography Through Literature
    Edith Cowan University Research Online ECU Publications Pre. 2011 1990 Tolstoy and Clio: An exploration in historiography through literature David Wiles Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworks Part of the Russian Literature Commons Wiles, D. (1990). Tolstoy and Clio: An exploration in historiography through literature. Perth, Australia: Edith Cowan University. This Report is posted at Research Online. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworks/7284 Edith Cowan University Copyright Warning You may print or download ONE copy of this document for the purpose of your own research or study. The University does not authorize you to copy, communicate or otherwise make available electronically to any other person any copyright material contained on this site. You are reminded of the following: Copyright owners are entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. A reproduction of material that is protected by copyright may be a copyright infringement. Where the reproduction of such material is done without attribution of authorship, with false attribution of authorship or the authorship is treated in a derogatory manner, this may be a breach of the author’s moral rights contained in Part IX of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Courts have the power to impose a wide range of civil and criminal sanctions for infringement of copyright, infringement of moral rights and other offences under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Higher penalties may apply, and higher damages may be awarded, for offences and infringements involving the conversion of material into digital or electronic form. FACULTY OF HEALTH & HUMAN SCIENCES Centre for the Development of Human Resources TOLSTOY AND CLIO: AN EXPLORATION IN HISTORIOGRAPHY THROUGH LITERATURE David Wiles November 1990 Monograph No.1 ISSN 1037-6224 ISBN 0-7298-0089-X Reprinted November, 1992 EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY PERTH WESTERN AUSTRALIA J- 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Bakhtin and Tolstoy
    Studies in 20th Century Literature Volume 9 Issue 1 Special Issue on Mikhail Bakhtin Article 6 9-1-1984 Bakhtin and Tolstoy Ann Shukman Oxford Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl Part of the English Language and Literature Commons, Modern Literature Commons, and the Russian Literature Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Shukman, Ann (1984) "Bakhtin and Tolstoy," Studies in 20th Century Literature: Vol. 9: Iss. 1, Article 6. https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.1152 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Studies in 20th Century Literature by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Bakhtin and Tolstoy Abstract This article is a study of the way Bakhtin compared and contrasted Dostoevsky and Tolstoy throughout his career. Special attention is given to Bakhtin's two "Prefaces" of 1929 and 1930 to Resurrection and to the dramas in the Collected Literary Works edition of Tolstoy. Bakhtin's view of Tolstoy is not as narrow as is generally thought. Tolstoy is seen as one of many figures of European literature that make up Bakhtin's literary consciousness. He serves as a point of contrast with Dostoevsky and is described as belonging to an older, more rigid, monologic tradition. Bakhtin's prefaces to Tolstoy's works are not just immanent stylistic analyses but can be seen as well as one of the moments when Bakhtin turns to a sociology of style in the wider sense of examining the social-economic conditions that engender style.
    [Show full text]
  • Teacher Notes on Russian Music and Composers Prokofiev Gave up His Popularity and Wrote Music to Please Stalin. He Wrote Music
    Teacher Notes on Russian Music and Composers x Prokofiev gave up his popularity and wrote music to please Stalin. He wrote music to please the government. x Stravinsky is known as the great inventor of Russian music. x The 19th century was a time of great musical achievement in Russia. This was the time period in which “The Five” became known. They were: Rimsky-Korsakov (most influential, 1844-1908) Borodin Mussorgsky Cui Balakirev x Tchaikovsky (1840-’93) was not know as one of “The Five”. x Near the end of the Stalinist Period Prokofiev and Shostakovich produced music so peasants could listen to it as they worked. x During the 17th century, Russian music consisted of sacred vocal music or folk type songs. x Peter the Great liked military music (such as the drums). He liked trumpet music, church bells and simple Polish music. He did not like French or Italian music. Nor did Peter the Great like opera. Notes Compiled by Carol Mohrlock 90 Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (1882-1971) I gor Stravinsky was born on June 17, 1882, in Oranienbaum, near St. Petersburg, Russia, he died on April 6, 1971, in New York City H e was Russian-born composer particularly renowned for such ballet scores as The Firebird (performed 1910), Petrushka (1911), The Rite of Spring (1913), and Orpheus (1947). The Russian period S travinsky's father, Fyodor Ignatyevich Stravinsky, was a bass singer of great distinction, who had made a successful operatic career for himself, first at Kiev and later in St. Petersburg. Igor was the third of a family of four boys.
    [Show full text]
  • THE USE of the FRENCH LANGUAGE in LEO TOLSTOY's NOVEL, WAR and PEACE by OLGA HENRY MICHAEL D. PICONE, COMMITTEE CHAIR ANDREW
    THE USE OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE IN LEO TOLSTOY’S NOVEL, WAR AND PEACE by OLGA HENRY MICHAEL D. PICONE, COMMITTEE CHAIR ANDREW DROZD MARYSIA GALBRAITH A THESIS Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Modern Languages and Classics in the Graduate School of The University of Alabama TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA 2016 Copyright Olga Henry 2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT This study comprises an inventory and an analysis of the types of code-switching and the reasons for code-switching in Leo Tolstoy’s novel, War and Peace. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Russia were marked by multilingualism among the nobility. The French language, in particular, was widely known and used in high society. Indeed, French was considered expressively superior to Russian (Offord, Ryazanova-Clarke, Rjéoutski & Argent, 2015). Then as now, code-switching was a common phenomenon among bilinguals. There were subjects discussed specifically in French, and others in Russian, in Tolstoy’s novel, which represents the life in Russia between 1807 and 1812, and which was constructed to reflect the nature of the time period and its characteristics. In this paper, using the theoretical model proposed by Myers-Scotton (1995) based on markedness, an identification is made of reasons for using code-switching. This is correlated with René Appel and Pieter Muysken’s (1987) five functions of code-switching; and Benjamin Bailey’s (1999) three functional types of switching. A delineation is also made of the types of topics discussed in the French language by the Russian aristocracy, the types of code-switching used most frequently, and the base language of code- switching in Tolstoy’s novel.
    [Show full text]
  • WAR and PEACE (Honors Section)
    WAR AND PEACE (Honors Section) Instructor: Prof. Ingrid Kleespies Email: [email protected] Office Hours: T, W 2:00-3:00pm & by appt. Office: 328 Pugh Hall Vasily Vereshchagin, "Return from the Petrov Palace," 1895 Course Description From the battlefield to the ballroom, Tolstoy's epic novel of life in Russia at the beginning of the nineteenth century is a profound meditation on the causes of war, the nature of social relationships, the poles of human suffering and love, and, perhaps most importantly, the nature and meaning of history itself. In this course we will read War and Peace closely in its entirety. We will examine the origins of the novel in Tolstoy's early writing and consider the historical, political, and social contexts, both of the events described (the Napoleonic Wars) and the period fifty years later in which Tolstoy wrote War and Peace. We will address some of the following questions: Is War and Peace a novel? How does Tolstoy's obsession with the theme of history shape the text on a variety of levels? What do various adaptations of the novel tell us about its reception at different historical moments? Finally, how might War and Peace be relevant to our own moment in history? General Education Objectives This course will provide students with an opportunity to explore the interrelationship between literature, art, and national identity. In so doing, it is designed to fulfill General Education distribution requirements in the categories of “Humanities” (H) and “International” (N). The content of the course draws students’ attention to the values, attitudes, and norms that shape Russian culture (N).
    [Show full text]
  • The Circassian Thistle: Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy's Khadzhi
    ABSTRACT THE CIRCASSIAN THISTLE: TOLSTOY’S KHADZHI MURAT AND THE EVOLVING RUSSIAN EMPIRE by Eric M. Souder The following thesis examines the creation, publication, and reception of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy’s posthumous novel, Khadzhi Murat in both the Imperial and Soviet Russian Empire. The anti-imperial content of the novel made Khadzhi Murat an incredibly vulnerable novel, subjecting it to substantial early censorship. Tolstoy’s status as a literary and cultural figure in Russia – both preceding and following his death – allowed for the novel to become virtually forgotten despite its controversial content. This thesis investigates the absorption of Khadzhi Murat into the broader canon of Tolstoy’s writings within the Russian Empire as well as its prevailing significance as a piece of anti-imperial literature in a Russian context. THE CIRCASSIAN THISTLE: TOLSTOY’S KHADZHI MURAT AND THE EVOLVING RUSSIAN EMPIRE A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of History by Eric Matthew Souder Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2014 Dr. Stephen Norris Dr. Daniel Prior Dr. Margaret Ziolkowski TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter I - The Tolstoy Canon: The Missing Avar……………………………………………….2 Chapter II – Inevitable Editing: The Publication and Censorship of Khadzhi Murat………………5 Chapter III – Historiography and Appropriation: The Critical Response to Khadzhi Murat……17 Chapter IV – Conclusion………………………………………………………………………...22 Afterword………………………………………………………………………………………..24 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………..27 ii Introduction1 In late-October 1910, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy died at Astopovo Station, approximately 120 miles from his family estate at Yasnaya Polyana in the Tula region of the Russian Empire.
    [Show full text]